Some teachers just have a ton of fun. Sounds like the fourth graders heading into Suzanne Hughes’s class at River Ridge Elementary might have some cool adventures in store this semester. After hearing Mrs. Hughes talk about the traditional field trip to Stone Mountain, Georgia for the Native American festival, I wanted to be in the fourth grade once again!

SmileMakers, Inc. Smile Scholar Kitty Tripp of Wellford Academy of Science and Technology gives some insight on what she’s learned over the summer and how things are looking at the start of a brand new school year.

SmileMakers is dedicated to providing a place where educators can find quality solutions for their classrooms for grade levels preschool through the 8th grade. We gathered a group of educators and administrators together to form Smile Scholars. We meet regularly to discuss product reviews, ideas for new products, issues affecting educators, and ways of making our catalog more educator-friendly.

Looking for real-life teachers who share their experiences online through their blogs? Here are a couple who will encourage you and occasionally stretch your mind.

Nashworld, Sean Nash, is an “instructional coach leading a community of learners at Benton High School in Saint Joseph, Missouri who are exploring learner-centered constructivism through emerging technologies.” His blog posts are thorough and well-resourced. Now’s a good time to start watching Sean: next year he’ll be undertaking instruction “unattached to a building,” and will be more closely exploring technology and the “participatory web.”

You might enjoy his well-photographed (270 images) Florida Keys Spring Field Study and his case for classrooms without walls.

If teaching writing is on your agenda, you may enjoy Two Writing Teachers, featuring Ruth Ayers and Stacey Shubitz. In addition to sharing their own teaching experiences, they also foster community amongst writing teachers be aggregating content from the community. Poetry Friday Roundup collects poetry creations and makes them accessible from one central place. Ayes and Shubitz also encourage submissions by way of blog post comments to a weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge. Both give you the opportunity to share your creations with your peers; you might just discover a new friend or two as well.

Many teachers share their experiences, stories, challenges, successes and more through their own blogs. Would you please share with us the blogs of your favorite blogging teachers?

If you’re a member of the International Reading Association (IRA), here’s your chance to be involved in leadership. The IRA is accepting nominations for vice president and for the Board of Directors. The deadline for nominations is July 15, 2010.

If you would like to nominate someone, you can complete the nomination form or mail a letter of nomination to:

2010-2011 Nominating Committee
International Reading Association
PO Box 8139
Newark, DE 19714

Apparently the once famous Gen Xers are being squeezed by the Baby Boomers on one side and the Millenials on the other, according to Elizabeth King. She included an interested chart showing the relative population mass of the three generations on her blog post The Numbers by Generation.

Her main point seems to be, technology is changing the way a generation communicates and is creating an opportunity to craft a different world. Technology, and specifically, social media, is pervasive and will play a significant role in reshaping the world.

When it comes to your experience in the classroom, how is social media effecting your normal day-to-day experience with your students? (We’ll ask about social media and your own peer-to-peer interactions, professional development, recruitment, etc. in a later post; so, please be thinking about that question, too.)

Would you share with us how social media influences communication with your students?

When you’re a student, struggling to sit still in your desk and worrying about the upcoming standardized test, you might not fully appreciate the teacher at the front of the room. Teachers are amazingly creative and teachers like to have fun!

Here’s a group of education professionals at a recent conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, showing off their t-shirt creation. Their enthusiasm and optimism were contagious.

For the past nine months or so, you’ve been planning, preparing, and pushing for the moment when all the testing was done and the students successfully completed another year. For nearly every one the school year is over (though we’ve heard tell there are many still in school today!).

What are the top things you want to accomplish before you repeat the process? If there are conferences you’re planning to attend, or classes you’ll be taking, or adventures you’ll be experiencing, would you please share them with us? It seems the community to teachers enjoys hearing YOUR stories and living your adventures with you. Who knows who you’ll connect with as a result.

You can share your adventures in the comments before and/or you can share with your fellow teachers via our Smilemakers Facebook Page. Either way, let us do summer together!

Our nation’s teachers and the educational professionals who work with them play a vital role in our society. Recently the state of South Carolina selected Kelly Nalley to represent the state and it’s teachers as the 2010 Teacher of the Year. She took time out to share with us her thoughts on the value of smiles in the classroom.

Teachers are often the “unsung heroes” of the community. Behind the teachers are the “heroes” of the robust army of educational support professionals who make the logistics and so many other things work.

While we were in Winston-Salem for the NCAE Regional Assembly, we had a chance to meet Mr. Jameel Williams who is the NC ESP Person of the Year. He says sometimes the students think he is superman, but he gets scared too, especially as the bus driver on snow days!

NEA Members: Remember to take advantage of Smilemakers NEA member specials available through the NEA website.

Energy. Enthusiasm. Stir in a healthy dose of optimism and that’s what we experienced in Winston-Salem at the North Carolina Association of Educator’s 2010 Regional Assembly. When the assembly concluded, NCAE president, Sheri Strickland, took a moment to share some of her passion for education with us. Even after a very long day of chairing the assembly, she still had plenty of enthusiasm to share!

NEA Members: Remember to take advantage of Smilemakers NEA member specials available through the NEA website.